I sent this excerpt in an email to a new friend.
I grew up in St. Charles, IL which is about 35 miles west of Chicago and went to a private Christian High School called Wheaton Academy. As a teenager, I was a golf caddy during the summers at St. Charles Country Club, which is where I started earning my first dollars (technically not true. I was a paper boy from 8-12). Caddying would eventually afford me the opportunity to go to college for free on the Chick Evans Scholarship: (http://www.
At Northwestern, I lived with 40 other Evans Scholars both men and women in our 'fraternity' house. The program and the scholarship were the greatest blessings I could have possibly imagined. I studied for 4 years at NU and got my degree in Communication Studies with a minor in Religion. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do for a job but it just so happened that, in April of 2008, while on my way toward spring-breaking in Spain, I met a man at a bar at O'Hare who was an Area Vice President for a company called Covidien, which manufactures and sells surgical supplies. At the time, Covidien didn't hire anyone with less than 3-5 years of sales experience, but a few weeks after meeting, that guy emailed me to tell me that Covidien was starting a new program where they were going to hire a class of Sales Associates right from undergrad and we thought I would be a great candidate.
Long story short, I got the job. I moved to Connecticut and worked for Covidien as a member of the very first Sales Associate Development Program. There were 11 of us, all between the age of 22 and 26 and we spent 15 months together learning how to sell Surgical Devices. I spent 6 months on an inside sales team, where I brought my base of 140 accounts from trending towards the high 70% to quota mark all the way up to 104% to quota. In that time, I might have been one of the wealthiest self-made 23 year olds in the country. I also met my current girlfriend, Amanda Markoya while I was there (www.amandamarkoya.com).
From that role, I was promoted to an outside sales position out in Los Angeles where I co-managed a $6.3 Million territory. My partner, Eric Scharmach, and I, brought that territory, (which included accounts like UCLA) up to just over 100%. It was a very high visibility position within the company and, though I bumped heads a lot with my partner and my manager, at the end of the day, we did what we needed to do to reach 100%. Amanda and I lived together in North Hollywood for about 8 months, while she trained to be a makeup artist.
In October 2010, I was promoted to take over my own territory as a Surgical Device Rep. One of the youngest people to ever do that within the history of the storied US Surgical (now Covidien). It wasn't until shortly thereafter, I realized that, even though I was continuing to pass through wonderful thresholds within the company and was making a good amount of money, I wasn't quite sure that selling surgical equipment was what I was meant to be doing. I pondered on that for about 6 months before I decided to leave the company in April 2011 to pursue 1. Starting my own companies 2. a career in comedy.
As you can imagine, this was not an easy decision to make but I did it anyway. I packed up and moved back home to Chicago where I focused on starting my companies and pursuing comedy (Amanda and I broke up and she moved back home to Connecticut). I worked at Chili's to pay the bills between July 2011-December 2011 and then in January, quit that job, sublet my apartment and went to live in San Antonio with my friends Josh, Rebekah and little baby Grace Gulley who essentially have been like my family. They helped me in every way possible while I focused more intently on developing my start-ups. In December of 2011, Amanda and I got back together and began our long distance Connecticut Girl, Nomad Boy relationship. I moved into the city more permanently in May of this year, when I started working at Wildfire. In August, Amanda moved to Brooklyn, so we now have a much cooler NYC Girl, Chicago Boy connection.
It wasn't until I began going around trying to raise money for my ventures (a video-sharing app vision and a surgical quality assurance company) that I realized how close I was getting to doing something that I wasn't ready to do, i.e. be the CEO of a company. While the idea of running my own startup is, and will always be, appealing, and I know that I would be successful at it, I realized that I more so should be focused, in this time of my life, on pursuing my passion: comedy.
Since making the decision to pursue comedy whole-heartedly, I have began creating a Kirk Sells brand on the Internet and everywhere I go. I continue to create content, perform shows, release videos, etc. While I work towards greater exposure in the comedy community. I stopped working on one of my companies and just recently turned the other into a production label so that I can help myself produce high quality creative material. I am trying to brand myself as a Comedy Rapper but have talents that include Standup, Improv, and Writing. I am also training in 3 classes at second city: Acting 1, Comedic Songwriting, + Clowning & Physical Comedy and will be auditioning for the 2nd time for the SC Conservatory next Friday. My goal is pretty straight forward: It is to be on Saturday Night Live.
If you haven't seen some of my stuff online, here are some links:
Who Am I? - Kirk Sells
Oregon Trail, Bitch- Kirk Sells
Kirk Sells - Comedy Demo Reel
In the shorter term, I should have a new rap video out by the end of October, done in the similar style of Oregon Trail, Bitch and I plan to have a 6 song EP out on iTunes by January 1, 2013. I will continue my improv and acting training at Second City.
Anyway, I know thats long-winded but that is my story. Hope we can learn a bit more about one another and I certainly have some introductions that I would like to make between you and some other influential men and women that I know.
